Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

afternoons had even asked me if I wanted to stay and watch a film with him. I
hadn’t minded too much when it was The Terminator – even though I have seen
all the Terminator films – but when he showed me the French film with subtitles,
I took a quick look at the cover and said I thought I’d probably give it a miss.
‘Why?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t like films with subtitles.’
‘That’s like saying you don’t like films with actors in them. Don’t be
ridiculous. What is it you don’t like? The fact that you’re required to read
something as well as watch something?’
‘I just don’t really like foreign films.’
‘Everything after Local Bloody Hero has been a foreign film. D’you think
Hollywood is a suburb of Birmingham?’
‘Funny.’
He couldn’t believe it when I admitted I’d never actually watched a film with
subtitles. But my parents tended to stake ownership of the remote control in the
evenings, and Patrick would be about as likely to watch a foreign film as he
would be to suggest we take night classes in crochet. The multiplex in our
nearest town only showed the latest shoot’em ups or romantic comedies and was
so infested with catcalling kids in hoodies that most people around the town
rarely bothered.
‘You have to watch this film, Louisa. In fact, I order you to watch this film.’
Will moved his chair back, and nodded towards the armchair. ‘There. You sit
there. Don’t move until it’s over. Never watched a foreign film. For Christ’s
sake,’ he muttered.
It was an old film, about a hunchback who inherits a house in the French
countryside, and Will said it was based on a famous book, but I can’t say I’d
ever heard of it. I spent the first twenty minutes feeling a bit fidgety, irritated by
the subtitles and wondering if Will was going to get shirty if I told him I needed
the loo.
And then something happened. I stopped thinking about how hard it was
listening and reading at the same time, forgot Will’s pill timetable, and whether
Mrs Traynor would think I was slacking, and I started to get anxious about the
poor man and his family, who were being tricked by unscrupulous neighbours.